Chapter 19 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
“ W hy are we even doing this? It’s fucking ridiculous,” I said, kicking Corvus’ shoes out of his reach to keep him from putting them on.
He glared at me from the one eye he could see out of, the other one was completely swollen shut, and snatched his shoes from the floor.
“Because we said we would,” he groaned, falling heavily onto the small stool in the hallway of The Nest, and I could tell it pained him to reach down to pull the shoes onto his feet.
The five stitches in his cheek strained as he grimaced.
He had two cracked ribs and some internal bleeding, but even battered as he was, I knew he wouldn’t accept my help no matter how many times I offered.
And I had offered. Many times. After I’d laid into his dumb ass for trying to sacrifice himself Thursday night. What the actual fuck was that? I didn’t know how I felt about it other than angry as fuck.
No one had ever put my life above theirs.
“Besides,” Rook said, coming through the hall to kick his feet into his boots like the bullet hole in his leg didn’t bother him at all. “Corvus won’t be cooking jack shit with his gimp ass, and I’m hungry.”
“Dick,” Corvus hissed and Rook made a face at him, stepping out of the way for Grey to come through to get his shoes on as well.
“Dies doesn’t want us here, anyway,” he added. “It’s too secluded. He knows where we’re going and said it’s a good idea.”
I really wasn’t going to get out of this, was I?
Fuck.
“We should be scouring every inch of Edgewood for those fuckers before they have a chance to regroup,” I argued. “Just because the Aces seem to have gone to ground doesn’t mean they aren’t just biding their time. What if they make a move on Diesel? Is he all alone at his place?”
Corvus lifted a brow at me. “You think he’s an idiot?” he asked. “Of course not. They’re all at Sanctum with their families. Dies is keeping them all under lock and key until Lenny Ace is a fucking corpse.”
I frowned.
I hadn’t known that, but they still didn’t share everything with me. I didn’t think they kept it from me on purpose, they just didn’t think I needed to know.
And maybe I didn’t.
I wasn’t sure I liked the difference in how I was feeling about Diesel St. Crow.
The way he’d gone straight to his sons, tended to their wounds.
The vicious way he’d forced that Ace to apologize before pumping lead into his skull.
And now he was keeping not only his men, but all of their families safe at Sanctum?
He also had that street cleaned up within hours of the battle, the only trace of evidence that it happened at all: the bits of blood lingering between cracks in the pavement.
I didn’t have to wonder why the cops never showed up.
Before we’d all gone back inside to sew up our wounds, Diesel had passed all his winnings from the match to Pinkie.
“Go pay our friends in blue,” he’d said, expression tight from the loss of winnings.
“I don’t want to go,” I tried instead, switching tactics, rolling my shoulder, feigning injury from the sniper rifle practice session this morning. I forced an overdone wince. “I changed my mind.”
“Too bad,” Corvus said gruffly as he pushed to his feet. “Get your ass in the car.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, and Corvus’ brows drew as he caught sight of the blade strapped to my ankle. “How armed do you have to be to have dinner with your aunt, Sparrow?”
My jaw clenched. “As armed as I need to be to go into battle with a rival gang.”
He caught my meaning. The fact that I had every one of my blades back where they belonged and at the ready had nothing to do with my aunt and everything to do with the fact that there could be an ambush of Aces waiting for us anywhere.
Though I doubted they would strike while it was still daylight.
“They’re gone,” Grey said, speaking aloud what all of us were thinking. “We exterminated over half their crew. They’re hiding, licking their wounds somewhere. They won’t be back for a while, if they ever come back.”
Corvus nodded his agreement. “All our sources say there’s been no gang presence in Edgewood since Thursday night. Lenny’s Hail Mary failed. He won’t risk his own ass to try some shit like that again.”
“Maybe not,” I acceded. “But they could just as easily ally with another gang as we did.”
“Who would ally with them now?” Rook asked, making no effort to disguise how idiotic he thought my statement was.
I rolled my eyes at him.
“You know what, never mind. Just tell me you’re all armed.”
Rook opened his jacket, showing the sleek mahogany grip of his gun hooking from the top of his jeans. Grey lifted the back of his jacket, showing me his piece and the hem of his jeans, flashing me a row of mags strapped there.
I looked to Corvus.
He sighed. “Don’t worry, Sparrow. I’m armed.”
“Fine,” I said in a huff. “Then let’s go sit around a table and say what we’re grateful for. Sounds like fun.”
Grey chuckled, and I sent him a deadpan stare, telling him without the need for words just how not funny I thought this was.
It’d only been two days since fight night. Our bruises were at their darkest. Our cuts were puckered black scabs. The hollows beneath our eyes were deep and the most vivid shade of purple they could be.
We were liable to give my aunt a goddamned heart attack just showing our faces at the door.
“We were in a car accident,” I decided. “No one was hurt beyond cuts and bruises, which is why we didn’t go to the ER.”
“Don’t fucking smirk at me,” I told Rook. “You’re going to regret going to this dinner by the time the night is through. I promise you that.”
My aunt’s disgusting mansion loomed around a bend in the freshly cobblestoned road ahead, seen through the heavy iron bars of her front gates.
Grey drove us up to the intercom panel and reached out to jab the button. It crackled before a male voice came through. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” Grey said, leaning down so the tiny camera could see his face. He flashed a smile. “Could you please let Mrs. Humphrey know that her niece has arrived for dinner.”
A pause.
“Y-yes. Certainly. Please do come in.”
The groan of a mechanical pulley system swelled in the tepid silence. The nearest neighbor was over a mile away and here, on the grounds of the Humphrey Estate, only birdsong and the distant sounds of the water fountains in the garden could be heard.
The amount of privilege and excess behind these gates was enough to make me want to vomit.
Grey drove us through, steering the Rover up the drive to the front door.
“It’s not too late to turn back,” I blurted, putting my hand over Rook’s in the backseat to stop him from opening his door.
His face lit up. “Honestly, the fact that you don’t want us to go inside so badly just makes me want to go in even more, Ghost.”
I growled, letting him go as I pushed out my own door, hating how Corvus almost lost his footing as he stepped out. He gave me a cautionary look as he shut his door, trying to gauge if I’d seen. If I would tell the others he wasn’t ready to be walking around yet.
My nostrils flared, but instead of calling him out, I looped my arm through his. “You’re an idiot,” I muttered, trying to covertly take some of his weight as we ascended the wide ivory staircase to the massive wooden front door.
Corvus scoffed in reply but didn’t pull away.
The door opened before Rook could even curl his pinkie finger around the knocker, my aunt standing there in her grand foyer, cheeks pink from too much rouge.
“There’s my niece,” she trailed off, her wide, welcoming arms dropping as she got a better look at us. Red painted nails flying to her chest to ward off the start of the heart attack I’d warned my Crows about.
“Oh dear,” she said. “What happened?”
“Car accident,” I supplied, seeing a playful gleam in Rook’s eyes I didn’t like. “It looks worse than it is.”
“You should’ve called,” my aunt said, tutting as she ushered us through the door. “Come in, come in . Let’s get you in out of this heat.” She snapped her fingers and the butler, who’s name I’d forgotten, rushed in. “Jackson, will you get ice waters for everyone?”
“Right away, ma’am,” Jackson said, bowing, his dark hair not moving at all through the movement, held hard to his head like a helmet with too much gel.
“Could I get something stronger?” Rook asked, making the butler pause. Clutching his shoulder as though it was causing him a great amount of pain. “The damned doctor wouldn’t give me anything for the pain. It’s almost unbearable.”
The butler, Jackson, looked to my aunt for guidance and she looked at Rook, assessing his suddenly drawn face. She gave Jackson a nod. “All right, dear,” she said to Rook, going over to pat him on his opposite shoulder. “Would you like some Vicodin?”
Rook perked up.
“No,” Corvus said for him. “Just a drink to take the edge off will be great, ma’am.”
My aunt gave Corvus a tight smile. “All right, well, I suppose there’s no sense in pretending eighteen-year-olds don’t drink these days.” She turned, hollering down the hall after Jackson. “Bring up a bottle of my late husband’s best, Jackson. And a few extra glasses.”
His muted voice called back that he’d heard, and Rook fought to hide a smile.
When I caught his eye, I shook my head at him, and he winked.
“Smells delicious,” Grey offered, indicating the aroma filling the room. Far off, I could hear the clatter of cookware from the staff kitchen and wondered how many staff she’d hired just to make a fucking dinner for five.
The fact that Dad and I were living in a run-down trailer for most of my life, with barely enough hot water to shower, while his sister had been living like this just a couple towns over made me feel so ill I had to swallow back the taste of bile in my throat.
Had to remind myself that it was my dad’s choice to distance himself from his sister.
To not take her strings-attached handouts.